The Fish Find

Although the gorgeous and crystal clear Boquete rivers look like perfect trout streams, unfortunately they don't house fish. This is because of pesticides in the water that kill the bugs that the fish eat. However, the Rio Chiriqui Viejo, just an hour and a half road trip away turned out to be a different story.

During our excursion we (Randy) caught not one but TWO (very small) trout! The even better news is that though he didn't hook one THAT time he did see trout in the Rio as big as ten inches! Ah, the perfect appetite wetting adventure and reason to return and fish another day. Being able to catch fish on his fly rod regularly is a big contributor to Rand's happiness so needless to say, we are both thrilled about the fish find.

We'd planned our fish quest on the same day we were scheduled to pick up some new furniture we'd had built. The drive home took us past the wood workshop where two Adirondack rockers, one chair and small table made out of teak were supposedly built and waiting for us. Well, wonder of wonders, the local guy from whom we'd commissioned them actually had them ready ON TIME (such a rarity here in Panama). All we had to do was load up The Gopher with our new goodies. Hopefully our still unfinished terraza will be done someday so that we can actually put our new furniture to good use.

Suspended

The David Fair is underway. We'd heard that the fair brought vendors from all over Central and South America, so we drove the 35 minutes to see what we could see. It was better than we had expected and we spent several hours browsing the grounds.

We feel like we got a pretty keen deal on a pair of hammocks from Ecuador. The pair cost us just $25. They are the perfect addition to our still unfinished yet already extremely enjoyable terraza. More photos in the Gallery under 'Boquete 2008'.

Casa de Pigott First Steps

We've signed on with a builder, Heriberto or "Toto" for short. Toto sent a retro (back hoe) up to our property to remove the coffee trees and a couple of dead trees from the areas where our home and road will be. We are staking out the property tomorrow and Toto will hopefully break ground on the future Pigott Casa this week.
And so it begins......we couldn't be more excited and READY!

Serene Scene

The fellow who is building our terraza told us that it would take him less than a week to complete the entire project. He said "By Saturday the terraza will be finished". We are 3 and a half weeks in currently and counting. Maybe we'll have a finished product THIS coming Saturday, a week from today. Hey, he said "Saturday", right? He just didn't say WHICH Saturday.....

The stained concrete floor was supposed to be chocolate colored but turned out kinda purple. They had little bags of red and black tint and kept throwing more red down because they were quickly running out of the black. We kept saying "Menos rojo, mas negro!" They ran out of stain with only a third of the deck concreted so now there is a pronounced line where they "joined" (scary since concrete doesn't bond to concrete) the previous day's dry side with the next day's application.

However, the view is so beautiful that we scarcely notice the botched floor. Yesterday afternoon was our first time to sit together on the terraza in our folding chairs and take it all in. WOW, what a serene scene!